close a movie don't listen shifty was honest with a precocious chemist. this is true no ball on steroids this is this will be worse than chernobyl japan the struggles to avert a nuclear meltdown as attempts to cool reactors at fukushima power plant bring no a media success feels the scale of the disaster is being played down. the i.a.e.a. has absolutely no ability to deal with this problem any more than the japanese government has the ability to deal with this problem the head of the u.n. nuclear watchdog finally heads to japan although amid criticism the atomic agency has failed to get on top of the crisis. the unfolding of fukushima disaster could severely damage the image and the bank accounts of the u.s.

who designed the station india is already rethinking its business dealings with the company general electric plus in other news. as more marco that he continues to regain control of libya from the opposition russia pushes for a cease fire resolution in the security council after the. crowd got to grips on that front on. it with r.t. live from moscow where it's now just after seven pm well japan is struggling to regain control of the overheated reactors at the tsunami damaged fukushima nuclear plant after a series of blasts on fire as forcing engineers and both in and managing the crisis has reportedly sustained injuries including radiation exposure now military helicopters drop. sea water was a stricken reactors trying to avert

a nuclear meltdown the water used five a fire engines loaded with thirty tons of water three out of a six reactors are reported to be in a critical condition radiation levels have risen in the thirty kilometer zone surrounding the station experts say the area is being exposed to a twelve month the dose of radiation every six hours u.s. officials have criticized the japanese government suggesting they are under playing at the seriousness of the situation that is either bennett has been to the quake hit regions to meet or firsthand the people who are fleeing the area terrified at the threat of a meltdown. the sheer force of the tsunami was hard to comprehend until i saw this he calls them houses it impossible angles it was as if the ground surface had been ripped off. this woman told us they've never experienced such a powerful earthquake before and she feared for her life we weren't allowed out of the car at the coast but police were on high alert and suddenly there was panic.

and warnings of a five metre high wall of water heading our way we sped inland as fast as possible chased by others the last wave took just nine minutes after the earthquake to reach eight kilometers inland we didn't have long this was a full salon but those already on their knees and bracing themselves for more and the relief center in sendai the newly homeless a given blankets and a cardboard sheet all nineteen floors of this building a full with everyone from infants to the elderly. the night i spent she was beaten the cold and virtually sleepless some could be years the weeks first an earthquake then the tsunami now and radiation roadblocks around fukushima appeared as early as saturday since then the fear has been steadily building just like the achieves it's

you can now it's a good toss this jan of cars for one thing to fill up here in fuel shortages it may not be visible hysteria but the anxieties prompted essential stockpiling out the threat a scale lates more and more leaving i was traveling with his crew from new zealand when we heard they had been off the explosion had planned quickly changed to an exit strategy at niigata i met this young family from sendai a baby boy was just five days old when the earthquake struck and. the only thing i thought of when it happened was i have to save my baby out of the field about the radiation i scared. that's why i have left sendai i'm scared for my baby and i don't want him to get you know it can have a very negative facts on him on the train to tokyo it was more of the same these stories does change his flight out to the earliest of able to get this. deal. when he comes the radiation the people i've met year

on shore the governments telling the full story and most aren't willing to wait around to find out either bennett fartsy tokyo. or the death toll from japan's catastrophic quake and tsunami has reached almost five thousand seven hundred over nine thousand others remain unaccounted for still and our correspondents are at the center of events and reporting on our what's happening around them you can get their first heard experiences on our twitter page you can i learn about the officers advise and also wear masks to protect themselves from the growing radiation. as a place of there also today's other news are on japan's crisis you can find all of that a lot of items if you look at our underscore. and if you advise us on all the gunderson says that while the japanese government may be seeking to downplay the scale of the nuclear crisis that doesn't change the fact

that the situation is critical and things the consequences could be disastrous this is true not all on steroids this is this will be worse than chernobyl the radiation exposure is are so high and say that i don't think human beings can get into the areas that need to be accessed in order to put the fire or to put fires out and also to get water into the locations where the heat is the highest if there's any lucky thing that's happened so far it's the wind is mainly blowing out to sea if the wind turns to the to the south i expect you will see radiation in tokyo i don't believe it would be enough to evacuate tokyo but i think it would be prudent to take precautions and you know try to stay out and stay out of the of the plume nearly asiatic region they're already beginning to reroute airlines because they're afraid of the the radiation landing on the airplane and you know of

a plane from from tokyo to moscow for instance will fly through that plume so it's it will definitely begin to affect lesia out of travel i don't think the government is lying i do think the government is not telling them everything it know it's you know i study chernobyl and i was an expert witness on three mile island and the government is always behind the eight ball on these things they are deliberately trying to downplay the amount of radiation being released you know we saw it in the gulf of mexico two or the oil spill they are under estimated the amount of oil that seems to be the way bureaucracies were. in the meantime the head of the international atomic energy agency says that he's heading to japan on thursday that's almost a week after the nuclear crisis began critics say the watchdog is lagging behind in failing to keep on top of events are going to go to school as more from tokyo. and mr prescribe radiation levels in the japanese capital could be up to eleven times

the norm people scramble to get away from the invisible killer here in tokyo series do seem to be less visible usual at the epicenter of the plans nuclear disaster fifty people remain struggling to keep the reactors under control but wait where is the international atomic energy agency the exponents of the peaceful use of nuclear power they're here in japan arriving four days after the first explosion at a nuclear plant the i.a.e.a.'s a promoter of nuclear power. is not any more efficient at solving this problem than pheno was solving hurricane katrina's problems in the u.s. when the proof the proof is in the putting you can clearly see that the i.a.e.a. has absolutely no ability to deal with this problem any more than the japanese government the very people who should be keeping tabs on the situation seemed to have their little direct involvement in it in fact until now the only source of information was the japanese government for years the organization has been busy

with their mission statement to maintain nuclear energy for peaceful means in two thousand five and need increased inspections of reigning facilities the organization and its then chairman mohamed el baradei was awarded a nobel peace prize but by the looks of it concerns over a possible un sanction pieces of nuclear energy by countries like iran seem to have overshadowed the clear and present dangers of already existing nuclear power plants in countries like japan and now it's the remaining workers who have to battle fire smoke and radiation at what remains of the power plant so there's only fifty people from the plant of the mall and they work in fifteen minutes shifts which is which is very little and they have to work very many things by hand because remote control installations have gone down. the main operating room is is not usable because of my really levels they're working under extremely difficult circumstances

to try to prevent in worst from the worst. reactors show in finding ways to go if he only fifty people remain database with a problem putting their lives at risk while behind why do you. watch on from a safe distance in a. kill kill. rusher is closely watching the situation in the far east and case any radioactivity reaches the coast from japan our correspondents in the city of of lot of vos talking is sharing our thoughts on our twitter page and having look at it right now it's also used because really going to show where she's now got a hands on a geiger counter which one might expect are in high demand of the region right now she's monitoring the radiation levels for us. latest updates on our twitter page that is r t underscore. and other authorities from for radioactivity russian rescuers in japan have begun to search

a hundred square kilometer area around the devastated city of sendai it has been discussing the challenges facing japan's government with sort of a short go russia's minister of emotional situations. and a discussion is coming your way next hour but here's a preview. a week ago nobody could have predicted the situation we see no who would have thought that six reactors would be in critical condition so we need to monitor and assess all this there is a saying that we learn from our mistakes i should say that many experts from japan came to our country to study the chernobyl disaster they studied the after effects on the environment on children and adults on the role of glands on vegetation the investor the huge amount of money in these studies into a large amount of work together with russia researchers those they did their best to use that situation to their advantage i believe that is not as it may sound now we and our experts must do our best to use the situation to our advantage in order

to render help mankind including russia would learn well the lessons the situation is teaching us. now as the nuclear crisis in japan develops the spread of radiation is not what's concerning people in both japan and in neighboring countries to discuss the possible impact on people's health we're now joined live by professor steve wing an epidemiologist from the university of north carolina so. the japanese authorities are using military helicopters to throw water on the reactors just how dangerous is it for the crews are to be that close to the radiation do you think it depends on the radiation levels certainly at high levels the workers could experience acute symptoms such as earned or. hair loss. and lower levels they will. they will experience you to risk of

cancer or not when you talk about though it depends on the level of the radiation we have reports or the radiation levels have risen risen in the thirty kilometers zone surrounding the station experts say the area is exposed to a twelve month dose of radiation every six hours that sounds severe. well certainly what we know about radiation is. any amount increases risk of cancer. very long period of time. will increase risk of cancer in the future over a very long time period. and when you talk about people the people being exposed to who are the most high risk groups you think are we talking pregnant women and children and also. the use is clearly very

susceptible to. damage from radiation and. it's one of the reasons why in medicine and there's so much care to make and now to avoid. giving x. ray exams for example to pregnant women. but x. rays which would seem well not nearly as severe as a lot of these are radioactive contamination we have reports that it's airborne it's or assumably it seems it's going to be in the water as well. the radioactive contamination in the surrounding area how long do you as you're saying it will be a risk so people we're talking cancer and other illnesses but how long can they be a risk to the people that anything. well there are two aspects to that question there is some of the. radiation emissions from the reactors and the. good have very short half lives they will disappear they will decay away and.

minutes hours days. other types of radionuclides. will last for years hundreds thousands of years and so resistant people depends on where they go and explodes so there there is a spectrum of types of radiation that are minute now and another issue that i think it's important to keep in mind is that. the instrumentation to know about reactors about you know about the radiation levels is is not include shape right. that's where the japan's government is saying that the radiation levels are more than thirty kilometers away and not immediately threatening does that sound right to you. well immediately threatening means

they're going to acute symptoms that sounds quite plausible but it doesn't mean that there won't be risks illusions that are exposed it will play out the rest of the lives of people there even after the radiation it's gone genetic damage could lead to cancer many years later so the long term effects what you're suggesting there professor long. it's it's it's still. the survivors of the atomic attacks. are still experiencing cancers from the relation exposures they receive. so i professor steve when we're out of time an epidemiologist from the university of north carolina thank you. for the disastrous events in japan coupled with concerns voiced by several european leaders are hitting the country's economy hard to find

out how the crisis is threatening the stability of its currency and our business bulletin later in the program us now of course over to the business desk for a preview dimitri i want you have. we have seen again surged to record highs since world war two now cooled down slightly we received actually reports from tepco that seemingly has been managed to succeed in delivering water to its nuclear reactor at the fukushima bloods and therefore we are seeing actually a positive mood on global markets so we may expect on friday to see some rebound again in tokyo stocks we'll find out more in five minutes i'll be along soon enough to tell you more about this. so i thank for that michel so you're saying the construction of reactors at the fukushima plant makes the danger of a radioactive contamination more likely but according to paul gunter who was part of the beyond nuclear campaign group in washington. clearly two of the containment systems are damaged one may very well be unit three may very well be

ruptured. in addition to the three reactor accidents all six of these nuclear power plants have tremendous amounts of nuclear waste stored in pools on top of the roof outside of containment and clearly unit number four the last report that we have it has lost all the water cooling the fuel that is which in the unit for they had offloaded the fuel out of the reactors put the entire reactor core into this rooftop pool so it's out of containment it's lost it has no water and clearly we have a full court meltdown maybe on its way without any containment whatsoever then there are the two other pools and five and six that have been heating up and the concern is that if they do not restore power to that facility that all six reactors

could become fully engaged in a meltdown. while the catastrophe at the fukushima plant has led to criticism of the make up of the nuclear reactors designed by american general electric back in the nineteen seventies the company is unlikely to be held liable however major customers like india and lot of rushing to sign new contracts correspondent priya has more from new delhi on the indian reaction to japan's disaster. right now a lot of people are wondering who they can point the finger at whether it's general electric who actually designed these nuclear reactors or the operator which in this case is tough go tokyo electric power company and actually when you take a deeper look into japanese law general electric will actually not be liable for any of the accident or damage that's happened at these nuclear reactors which could save them potentially tens or hundreds of billions of dollars so they're probably

breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief right now actually tepco the operator of the nuclear reactors would be responsible for those liability costs now many people are saying that in fact there were some design flaws in these nuclear reactors general electric bills and if that turns out to be the case then tough coal in the japanese government could actually sue general electric but it remains to be seen there's still a lot of investigation that needs to be done general electric is very keen on tapping into the one hundred fifty billion dollar nuclear energy business here in india the chairman of g.e. jeffrey immelt was actually in india this week promoting his company's interest in investing millions of dollars into india's nuclear program he announced that he plans to spend five million dollars within the next five years but obviously many indians are worried about what they're seeing over in japan and this comes on top of a huge scandal that's rocking india today wiki leaks the whistle blowing web site actually

released thousands of cables that americans knew about bribes to indian politicians to make them sign that the u.s. indo nuclear deal back in two thousand and eight so that's clearly not helping american image here in the subcontinent right now. right there keeping you are fully up to date with events in japan is our facebook account you can join the debate and share your thoughts on the situation in japan there's a lot of items there on our facebook page for you to check out i would also call the latest videos news analysis on japan and all of our top stories. thanks. to some other news now here on r.t. in libya forces loyal to colonel gadhafi have made significant gains in their offensive against the rebels pressuring the last opposition held city in the west also airstrikes have targeted an airport just ten kilometers from the eastern rebel stronghold of benghazi as the advance on the rebels continues the u.n.

security council remains divided over a no fly zone resolution britain and france say is necessary to prevent could have used planes from bombing civilians russia says imposing a no fly zone could lead to a military intervention and pushing for a cease fire as you go to prison officers following developments for us along with the international community a russia has strongly criticized a moment ago that these actions in libya in fact just a few days ago president dmitry medvedev has called gaddafi persona non-grata meaning that he is unwelcome here in the country and. is his fellow you need to move also from conducting any financial operations in the country when he comes to the north why a resolution truly discussed by the u.n. security council russia is against and stands for the complete start. in libya and according to russia's foreign minister silvio of. the recent meeting

of the g. eight foreign ministers in the clearest he says when it comes to this no fly resolution there are several stumbling points the first one is that even though it was supported by the arab league we haven't. me the concrete detailed proposal on health this north why resolution should be a no fly zone resolution should be conducted it's not clear whether it will need the use of force in the us or strongly strongly stands against any foreign military intervention in libya more good that he continues to regain control of the only real teacher is from the opposition so it's not clear if this resolution will be relevant anymore. but i was going to his forces are closing in on the opposition that libyan leader himself believes that the situation on the ground is different to what people are saying in the media. before going to go through hoops or out we

are dealing with something important to us from abroad i mean al qaeda terrorists leadership began to tell the world about contests in libya about shooting guns thousands killed he sent clearly points to the news agencies and all of a sudden we found of the whole world is against libya with what we have had no protests how could news agencies report such statements the number of it comes is one hundred fifty to two hundred so how could one speak about rosen's how can the un security council and the whole world decide based on media reports and it's now difficult to change world opinion and perception of what's going on at all. times of the business news with a train. thanks rory japan's economic aftershock has led to concerns over the possible drop in demand for energy for the world's third largest economy nuclear energy has come under question as well with japan's plant on the verge of collapse meanwhile oil

and gas futures have risen on for as they were right so we moving above one hundred dollars a barrel once again now christine this corrino oil and gas equity analyst that was in london says the gas producers are set to enjoy a spell of rising gas prices. oil is being driven by effects in the middle east not so much the japanese situation natural gas prices on the other hand are being impacted by the japanese problems and it's going to be profits for the natural gas markets because prices have been depressed there we have a lot of oversupply of both l.n.g. and natural gas so hopefully these will firm things our police will be more and stead of having natural gas markets to press for the next you know three four years now it might only be for about a year announce which is good for natural gas producers like us from. the japanese yen is its highest level against the us dollar since the end of world war two

hundred seventy six and a quarter in u.s. trading on wednesday but it's since fall and back it is currently trading at around seventy nine dollars market watchers blame the stronger. relation of assets in foreign currency by japanese insurance firms meanwhile g seven finance ministers will meet on to discuss how to deal with global markets for the city as expect ministers to give the go ahead to intervene in currency markets to steady the earlier this week japan's central bank injected two hundred eighty four billion dollars in order to stabilize the country's financial markets which have been hit by a massive south so you look at these markets now the nikkei raised some of the post great gains as saw on wednesday and closed down one point four percent in first day session hong kong's hang sank close almost two percent down now tepco says it's seemingly succeeded with delivering water to cool down reactor number three but because she's a plant and this is fueling hopes that a catastrophe could be averted therefore we're seeing a positive move on the u.s.

markets there are also boosted by a drop in jobless claims for the first week in the last four which fortified investor confidence even more it was a dow one point one the nasdaq up one point for european stocks regaining some of the losses also encouraged in previous sessions analysts say key driver for the market is the notion that g seven will cooperate to help ease and markets in medicine easing the global central bankers violence this is essential for tomorrow among the stocks currently enjoying the rebound royal dutch shell abbey by extracts adds i guess they're all up more than three and a half percent on that. here and also the r.t.s. and my sex ended first day session on the pretty positive note all of us is are keeping a close watch on updates on japan's close work radiation prices high oil prices are providing support to the market nice mix up two percent so you get some of the stalled. it's driven by banking stocks but bank one of the biggest gain is up four

percent lukoil up on the high of crude prices also two percent look well almost three percent here's another one just from a just be seen and not. i think this is a lot of uncertainty in the market and that's what's really affecting markets it's of course the terrible events that have happened in japan there's also a lot of concern about what's happening on inflation front because in the background you are still having a surge in commodity prices led by oil prices and the real concern is that the recovery is just too for china at this point of time to be able to withstand all these specials coming through and that's what's really driving markets going sound at this point of time well thanks for being with business hours he will be back with an update in fifteen minutes time rory is next with headlines.

wealthy british style. sometimes right on. target. markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger or no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cause report on our.